Bottling It

As I don't drink much bottled beer, I don't come across this situation very often, but it seems that bottled versions of draught beers are often sold stronger, sometimes significantly so. You will notice here that I say sold "stronger" as, inevitably, the beer will be brewed to a higher strength, then "liquored down" for the draught version. Watered down that is. Now I know of course that there are various reasons for this differentiation in strength, from both a practical and a marketing point of view, but it seems to me when a draught version is, say, 3.9% and the bottled version is around 4.8%, leaving the method of dispense aside, that you will have an entirely different drinking experience. In fact you may almost have entirely different drink.

Now it may be of course, even though they have the same name, that the bottled beer drinker knows this and in fact regards the drinks as entirely different. Or acceptable variations on a theme perhaps? Nor do I know whether drinkers of such bottles resort to the bottled version of the draught beer usually, or just sometimes, when they buy such things; or indeed, whether the brand loyalty of a cask beer drinker extends in any way to the equivalent bottle, though I'm sure marketing geeks would say they do. The world of the standard bottled beer is somewhat shrouded in mystery to me.  For all I know, bottled beer drinkers simply don't know or care about this aspect at all.

If I were Mudgie, who is interested in this kind of thing, I'd set up a poll, but I can't be bothered. Instead I'll just await comments.